Let's Go to The Rat

Brattle Theater Nov 16, 2014

Review by John Keegan

A low budget, labor of love, film project by a guy with limited connections
about a local, passion pit cultural icon like The Rat
is a prima facie no-win proposition. The first few questions of the
premier's post screening Q and A bore this out. Each started with cantankerously
toned "Whys…" They put director Andrew Szava-Kovats
on his heels for a moment but he recovered.

Let's Go to The Rat is, perhaps
unavoidably, flawed. Ironically, it is undermined by the exact DIY esthetic
that it seeks to celebrate. Szava-Kovats isn't Ken
Burns. He wasn't working with a PBS level budget or a big grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts. Let's Go to The Rat
is not a high tech production. For example, Szava-Kovats'
choice to repeatedly superimpose the talking head interviews over performance
videos quickly wears thin. The folks who receive extensive interview
time - musicians Dave Minehan, Rick Berlin,
Willie Alexander, music zinesters Bob Colby,
Eric Van and employees like Linda Viens -
provide interesting "I was there" context and color. BGN's
own Blowfish distinguishes himself by tying the threads
of the primeval Rat story together. He adds insightful
comments on the evolution of early punk and its relationship to the
then unmet needs of a nascent punk music consumer.

The archival footage that is used catches the feel of the room and
is a hoot to watch and listen to. It does, however, leave you jonesing
for performance video representing a much broader slice of bands and
time frames. Nothing from the seventies? Nothing, as one audience member
lamented, from the clubs hardcore shows in the 90's? More than one potentially
interesting avenue lead to dead ends. For example, The FSU
(Fuck Shit Up/Friends Stand United), a straight edge, hardcore associated,
Boston-based, FBI categorized gang is briefly mentioned but left unexplained
and unexplored. The ruddy faced raconteur and man behind the red velvet
curtain of the story, Jim Harold, conspicuously absent.

Szava-Kovats defended his efforts. He claimed that
he reached out to hundreds of people. He got responses from a small
percentage of that group. He got active participation from a fraction
of the smaller group. It took Szava-Kovats four years
to complete the film. He spent 15K of his own money. He states exasperatedly,
and somewhat wearily, that he did the best he could with what he had.
He deserves a respectful nod for having the balls to wrestle with the
beast.

If you remember Mitch the doorman,
the stairway down to the club, the bathrooms, or any of the multitude
of great local and or early shows by future stars, you will want to
see Let's Go to the Rat. If you hung out at the club
or were a Rat insider, you will likely find yourself frequently mouthing
"Why…", or "WTF", but you will still find things to like. Yes, Let's
Go to The Rat is flawed. Maybe WGBH can get Ken Burns
to go to town on this. Until then, Let's Go to The Rat
is what we have.

That said, Let's Go to The Rat is
an affectionate and sincere attempt to pay tribute to a local dive bar
that, as Minehan notes, captured the local Zeitgeist of a defining period
in rock. The Rat meant different things to different people at different
times. The club's significance waxed and waned with time. It probably
never exceeded the cachet it enjoyed from the mid-seventies thru the
mid-eighties. But, whenever your affaire de coeur with The Rat
occurred, and for however long it lasted, it likely imprinted a graffiti
smeared impression on your musical sensibilities. Let's Go to
The Rat gives you a modest, but enjoyable look at why and how.